Reflection
by PandaFire McMango
Summary: Joe's thinking, just thinking in the hospital right after Green's shot. I wrote this solely because I am a Jesse L. Martin fangirl, so therefore I must write about him. But NO SLASH or anything. As a RENT fandom person, I have enough of that as it is.


**A/N: **TA-DA! HERE IT IS! MY FIRST NON-RENT FIC! Although the only reason I started watching L&O (and the main reason I continue to) is Jesse L. Martin, and he is a large branch of my RENTheadism. Ah, well. Anyways, this is just a little reflection of Joe Fontana's during the hospital portion of 'Tombstone', where Green's shot. I don't like Fontana much; I much prefer Jesse pairing off with Jerry Orbach, but oh well. Anyway, just a little drabblish stuff.

* * *

Joe leaned forward in the chair, slowly turning a quarter over in his hands. It was shiny and new; he never kept tarnished quarters. It was more of a habit than a preference. He just never liked the quality of those old coins, all rough and flecked with grey. They always felt a little out of place in his hands.

Beside him, Van Buren shifted a little in her chair. Joe glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She looked worn, stressed; considering the situation, it wasn't at all surprising. Ed and Van Buren had always gotten along well, although Joe gathered that they'd had a few issues right at the beginning. But he saw the way Van Buren looked to Ed first most of the time, the way she deferred to him naturally. He'd never known Lennie Briscoe, only heard the stories that leaked through the police network. Somehow, Joe had a feeling that Van Buren's trust and even friendship with Ed had a little to do with the mutual friend and coworker they'd found in Briscoe. Though again, from what he'd heard, Ed and Briscoe had their rough spots too. Just like Joe himself and the Lieutenant.

The two of them had had a rocky start, arguing over politics and the military from day one. Ed had been the common ground for both of them. He'd deflated most of the tension in the arguments, reminding that they weren't politicians but policemen. And now Ed—

Joe shook the thought from his mind and turned his head to look a little farther down the corridor. There were a couple cops leaning against the wall, eyes trained on the billboard opposite them. Must be friends of Ed's, he thought. Like me.

That thought hit Joe rather hard. Was he really Ed's friend? Sure, they were partners, and they'd gone for more than a few drinks together. But Joe got the feeling that Ed had always held off a little, like he'd been reluctant to give Joe anything more than what a coworker was owed. Joe couldn't really blame him; he'd never had great luck with partners. They'd either gotten pissed off at his money or his less-than-orthodox tactics, which had won him as many collars in the old days as it lost him today. And after all, how could a somewhat snobbish Chicago cop who'd almost gotten kicked out of his Bronx precinct for arguing with the idiot captain compete with the great Lennie Briscoe, legend of the 27th and, from what he'd gathered, a good friend of Ed's. He knew how it was to lose a partner who'd become more than a partner; but that wasn't worth thinking about. None of this was. For the moment, Joe was as much Ed's friend as anyone else, and at the very least he was his partner.

His partner who'd sent Ed off alone to pick up a witness that apparently had an enemy with a fully loaded clip.

Joe closed his eyes and sighed, still turning the quarter over in his fingers. He could see it behind his eyelids: the way he and the Lieu had been pulled out of court with an urgent phone call. The way his heart had been pounding as he careened through the streets, praying to God it wasn't the worst. The way Ed had looked, twisted beside the car with his gun drawn and blood staining the pavement, as a cop knelt over him and shouted that paramedics were on the way, Paluso was dead with two in the chest, Detective Green was hardly breathing. And how it hit him like his own personal bullet as he watched the paramedics swarm around Ed, chattering to each other worriedly and slipping an oxygen mask over his face: _my partner's been shot. Ed's been shot. And I was dodging some defense lawyer's idiotic cross-examination while it happened._

Now he slipped the quarter into his pocket and just stared down at the ground. Ed's mother was in the room with him. She was living upstate, but her local police had given her an escort to Manhattan as soon as the word went out. She looked a little like him. His nose and brow were definitely hers, and the look of urgency in the eyes. That was Ed all over.

God…as he sat that, gazing down at the green-flecked white hall floor, Joe made himself a promise. Whoever shot Ed was going to pay. He could care less about Kenny Paluso; a garden-variety scumbag, he knew a million like him. But Ed didn't deserve to have his attacker go free. Whoever it was and wherever they were, Joe was going to get them. When Jack McCoy had asked him how he was doing as he got into the car back at the crime scene, Joe had replied that he was just thinking. His thoughts had been of revenge at that moment; after all, he thought with a tough of ruefulness, he was Italian. Vendetta, eh?

"Joe?" The voice made him jump. He straightened and turned to face the Lieu, her hands flat on her knees and her face stony.

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna go make a few calls…there are some people at the Two-Seven who'll want to know about him. And I think it's going to be hours until…until we can get anything real," she said, her voice low and unfamiliar. Joe nodded and watched as she got up and walked down the hall, coat billowing around her legs. Friendships among police were just like celebrity marriages, Joe reflected as she disappeared around the corner; they were so ill-fated that you might as well give up on them.

The only difference was that in one case, the ending factor usually had the words "irreconcilable differences" in it. In the other case, the words "officer down" had more of an impact.

Joe took out the quarter again. Very slowly, he began to turn it over in his fingers.


End file.
